As much as I think we should invest in colonizing other planets, I don't think it is far to say that we slowed down or stagnated our progress into space because more humans haven't gone farther than the station. There was no great scientific accomplishment in putting a man on the moon, it was a great feat of engineering, great for politics, and (probably) great for the economy, but there was no progress made that a robot could not have done for a fraction of the resources.<p>The iconic vision of moon project is the American flag. If that doesn't suggest that it was more about politics that progress, I do not know what will.<p>On the other hand, today were are focusing our space exploration resources as efficiently as we can, sending small rovers to do research, cooperating internationally instead of duplicating effort, ETC.<p>Once we learn enough to make a long-term colony feasible (or run into some barrier that requires human presence to solve), it is simply a waste of resources.<p>Besides, we have a continues human presence in space, I consider that far more impressive than a couple of visits to the moon, or Mars.
"I don't give a damn if robotic probes make more sense. I don't give a damn about the views of academic committees or health and safety. I don't give a damn about the supposed costs – money spent on space exploration is invested in science and technology right here on Earth, and has paid for itself many times over."<p>What he's really saying in this opinion piece is that he doesn't care a whit about evidence, and isn't interested enough in his fellow human beings to try to persuade them with careful reasoning. I was second to none in cheering on the Space Race when it was happening. I was taking a summer course on planetary astronomy, a special program of my school district, with the classmate who became my lifelong best friend during the summer when the first Moon landing happened. We were both fans of the space program and aspired to be astronauts. Our school district's school board voted that summer what to name the new high school: Neil Armstrong Senior High, of course. So I'm an alumnus of a school named after Neil Armstrong.<p>Humankind has set foot on the Moon. Humankind has sent space probes to other bodies in the Solar System, and has collected and returned samples from a few of those, with Mars next in consideration. But meanwhile lots of young Baby Boomers who grew up watching members of the Greatest Generation or the Silent Generation becoming public heros by voyaging into outer space have discovered that there are challenging, tough problems to solve right here on Earth.<p>I have mentioned before here on HN that in the school year just before the Moon landing, my classmates and I built a time capsule with our predictions of the year 2001. The time capsule was opened that year. Our predictions largely proved too pessimistic, although they included a lot of gee-whiz technological predictions. Pollution was less of a problem, worldwide, than we predicted for 2001, and petroleum was more plentiful and less expensive.<p>The world gets wake-up calls every day. Every day people face problems. Life is full of problems. The way to have excitement in life is to be excited about grappling with and perhaps solving problems. That's even more cool than being stacked on top of a column of explosive chemicals to be pushed into orbit. People can float more freely than they float in microgravity when they free their minds to be imaginative about how to solve problems. If exploring space some more solves real problems for real people, some people will be willing to pay to send other people into outer space. But mostly people will be most willing to pay for what appears to have genuine utility, and there are plenty of exciting, risky, and challenging things to do right here on the ground that are likely to have higher priority than manned space exploration for most people for a long, long time.
Interesting. "By the time I was a grown-up we would be whizzing around in bullet trains and hypersonic jets,..."<p>I'm bothered more by not having bullet trains (in America) and hypersonic jets. If you compare getting 2 dozen people to Mars vs building futuristic cities, transportation, etc., I think humanity will benefit much more if we bring 7 billion people into the future.<p>Just imagine, for example, a kid in the slums of Rio studying online to earn her degree from a future version of Udacity, after which she finds a job in London so she jumps on a plane for the 2 hour flight. After a year, she buys an apartment 100 miles outside and commute 30 minutes every day to work by maglev. With hypersonic flight she can fly home for long weekends to visit her family...<p>In short, the point let's first invest in making our world smaller and educate more people so more people come online to help contribute in some meaningful way.